Since the end of the 1990s, gated residential neighbourhoods have moved into the focus of an interdisciplinary scientific community. Asking why they have loomed in the last two decades, the majority of publications find the answer in an increased fear of crime, a widened socio-economic polarisation and a wish to privatise public goods. Arguing from a constructivist and critical point of view, chiefly with respect to the ideas of the new cultural geography, I assert in the context of Miami that these generalisations have to be challenged, particularly since there are many to be found in suburban spaces.